Paring



. www! UNITE STATES PAE GFFC,

EPHRAIM L. PRATT, OF PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA.

MACHINE FOR PARING APPLIES.

Specification of Letters Patent No. 14,775, dated April 29, 1856.

To all whom t may concern Be it known that I, EPHRAIM L. PRATT, of thecity and county of Philadelphia and State of Pennsylvania, have inventednew` and useful Improvements in Apple-Parers; and I do hereby declarethat the following is a full, clear, and exact description thereof,reference being had to the annexed drawings, making part of thisspecification.

Figure 1, is a side elevation of the improved machine. Fig. 2, is a topor birds eye view of ditto. Fig. 3, is a view of the cogged gearing formoving the knife over the surface of the apple during the revolution ofthe same. Fig. 4, is a section of the slotted arm through which theknife is moved. Fig. 5, is a view of the knife and stock in which it issecured. Fig. G, is a longitudinal section through the center of ditto.Fig. 7, is a cross section of ditto.

Similar letters in the several figures refer to corresponding parts.

The nature of this invention and improvement consists in securing theend of the vibrating shaft, to the opposite end of which the knife isattached, to a stud project-ing from the cogged segmentthrough which thesaid knife is moved over the surface of the apple, by a flat steel orother spring, so as to enable the edge of the knife to be accommodatedto the inequalities of t-he surface of the apple, by the twisting ortorsion of the spring.

To enable others skilled in the art to make and use my invention I willproceed to describe its construction and operation.

The frame A, may be made of malleable iron or other suitable material,and is arranged in an inclined position, being supp-orted at its upperend by an inclined rod B, jointed to the frame at its upper end, and toa plate, secured to the table or other platform at its lower end, andcapable of being folded under the frame for convenience oftransportation. Above one edge of the frame, and parallel with the edgeof the same is arranged an inclined shaft C, turning in suitable boxes,and having a cog wheel D, at its upper end, with which meshes in gear ascrew thread secured or formed on transverse shaft E, having prongs caston or secured to one of its ends, on which the apple is forced and held,and a crank F, on its opposite end for giving motion to the same. On thesame inclined plane with this shaft C, and diagonally thereto isarranged another shaft G, turning in suitable boxes in the frame, andhaving a slotted arm H, attached to its upper end, through the slot H,in which the inclined knife shaft I, passes, the lower end of said knifeshaft, also passing through a slot in a smaller arm H2, secured to theshaft near its lower end. On the lower end of the shaft C, is secured asegment K, having eight (more or less) cogs on its periphery, one halfof which are on a segment of a circle scribed from the center of theshaft C, and the other half on a segment of a circle scribed eccentricwith said center, the said cogs extending more than half way around theshaft, and a portion of the remaining space between being Vscallopedout-from the first of the regular cogs to within a short distance of thelast of the eccentric cogs, so as to form a curved blank space K, fromthe end of which to near the last eccentric cog nearest the center ofthe shaft C, the edge or space K2, is curved inward slightly toward thecenter and eccentric with the same, so as to enable the last eccentriccog of the segment L, secured on the lower end of the diverging shaft G,to slide over its eccentric surface, and to hold the same, until thesaid eccentric surface K2, has passed under it, as will be hereafterdescribed. The cogs on this last mentioned segment L, correspond innumber, and relative position with the center of the shaft G, with thecogs on the segment K, and the position they assume in relation to thecenter of the shaft C, that is to say, the first four cogs (2) nearestthe first projection or large cog (l) of the segment L, are on a circlescribed from the center of the shaft G, and mesh in gear with the firstcorresponding form (3) of the segment K, and the next and last four cogs(4) on said segment L, are eccentric with the center of its shaft, andcorrespond and mesh in gear with the four eccentric cogs (5) of the saidsegment K.

The lower end of the knife shaft I, has a thin, flat, steel spring S,secured to it, which is attached by a pin, upon which it moves at itslower end, to a stud projecting from the segment L, between the outeredge of the projection or cog (l) of the same, and the center of theshaft G, in such a manner as to allow the knife shaft I, to be movedfrom the shaft G in the slots of the arms H, H2, by the surface of theapple acting on the gage or stock M of the knife, and drawn toward thesame by the spiral spring N, attached to the end of the slotted arm H,and the knife shaft I.

The knife o, is formed of a thin piece of steel, similar to the mainspring of a watch, and is inserted in grooves formed in the forkedprongs of the stock M, being stiifened on its back surface by a bar M,extending from one prong to the other, and to which it is secured by ascrew passing through a slot in theknife, and into a female screw in thebar M, in such a manner as to enable an extremely thin knife to beemployed, which is better adapted to the purpose of paring than one ofthe thickness heretofore employed, from the fact that it will the morereadily keep its position under the paring, no matter what may be theputrid or spongy character of portions of the surface of the apple, andnot run over such portions without paring them, as is the case with thethick knife heretofore used. Besides this advantage, there is anotherderived from the thinness of the knife, which is, that the acidsextracted from the apple in paring, having a. thinner body of metal toact upon, are suflicient with the rubbing process, the edge of the knifeis necessarily subjected to in the performance of its func-tion, toalways keep its edge to the proper degree of sharpness.

The operation of this machine is as follows: The apple to be pared ispressed upon the prongs of the screw shaft E, when the knife shaft T andcogged segments K, L, are in the positions r-epresented in Figs. l, 2,and 3 of the drawings, so as to enable the knife O, to be pressedagainst the stem end of the apple, by the spiral spring N, which iselongated by the act of forcing the apple on the prongs. The screw shaftE, is then revolved by its crank F, and the inclined shaft C, and coggedsegment K, on its lower end, is slowly turned by the threads of thescrew shaft, acting on the cog wheel D, on its upper end, the applebeing allowed to revolve once before the first cog 3, of the segment K,acts on the projection or large cog l, of the segment L, so as to enablethe knife to cut a circular peeling from the end of the apple, near thecore, after which the cogs 3, of the segment K, on the circle scribedfrom the center .of the shaft C, act on the corresponding cogs 2, of thesegment L, and turn the same, and the knife sha-ft I, in the slots ofits arms H, H2, and causes the knife O, to be moved over the surface ofthe apple during its revolution, at a uniform speed, until the cogs 5,of the smaller segment K, on an eccentric line, mesh in gear with thecorresponding cogs L, of the larger segment L, when the speed of theknife over the more convex portion of the end of the apple, in relationto its revolving progress, is reduced, so as to enable it to take anarrower spiral peeling from this portion, the nearer it approaches thecenter, where the convexity of apples generally increases, until its endnearly reaches the center, when the eccentric surface K2, acts upon thelast eccentric cog 4 of the larger segment L and holds it until saidsurface passes under the said cog, during which time the apple isenabled to make a revolution while the knife is thus held nearly in astate of rest, so as to allow the same circular peeling to be taken fromnear the core part of this end, as was taken from the stem end. Afterthe eccentric K2, has passed under this last cog 4, the knife shaft I,is brought back to its original position by the slotted arms H, H2,being suddenly turned by the spiral spring N (which has been contractedor wound up by the previous movement of the knife shaft) acting on theshaft G. By thus moving the lknife at an increased speed, over the lessconvex portion of the apple, where it is enabled to cut a wide slice orpeeling, after it has remained stationary near the stem portion of thecore, until one revolution of the apple has been made, to cut a circularpeeling therefrom, and decreasing the speed of its movement over themore convex portion, nearest the opposite end, where it cannot cut sowide a slice or peeling, and causing it to be held near the core duringone entire revolution of the apple, by the eccentric K2, before it hasreleased the last cog 4, of the segment L, the knife is caused to parethe entire surface of the apple.

During the process of paring, the cutting edge of the knife isaccommodated to the inequalities of the surface of the apple by the flatsteel spring S, which enables the knife shaft I, to have a slightlyelastic turning movement, when either end of the knife gage, or edge ofthe knife, meets with such inequality, the twisting or torsion of saidspring, always acting in its elasticity, to bring the edge of the knifeto its proper relative position with the surface of the apple.

lVhat I claim as my invention and desire to secure by Letters Patent is,

Attaching the lower end of the knife shaft I, to the stud projectingfrom the larger segment L, by a fiat steel, or other spring S, forenabling the said knife shaft to have a slight vibration, through thetwisting or torsion of said spring, for the purpose of adapting the edgeof the knife to the inequalities of the surface of the apple, during theprocess of paring, and enabling the elasticity of the spring S, producedby the twisting or torsion of the same, to be exerted toward bringingthe edge of the knife, when thus moved, back to its proper relation tothe surface of the apple as herein set forth.

E. L. PRATT. Witnesses:

1V. H. TOWERS, H. S. LESHER.

